Comments on: Top 5 Reason’s Adobe Flex and AIR are Not For You http://gorillajawn.com/wordpress/2009/06/08/top-5-reason%e2%80%99s-adobe-flex-and-air-are-not-for-you/ Enterprise Software Consultant Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:02:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Internet Marketing Email » Blog Archive » Jon Rose's Blog » Blog Archive » Top 5 Reason's Adobe Flex and AIR ... http://gorillajawn.com/wordpress/2009/06/08/top-5-reason%e2%80%99s-adobe-flex-and-air-are-not-for-you/comment-page-1/#comment-20922 Internet Marketing Email » Blog Archive » Jon Rose's Blog » Blog Archive » Top 5 Reason's Adobe Flex and AIR ... Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:29:04 +0000 http://ectropic.com/wordpress/?p=284#comment-20922 [...] jonr added an interesting post on Jon Rose's Blog » Blog Archive » Top 5 Reason's Adobe Flex and AIR …Here’s a small excerptIf, for no other purpose, than to have a good reason to post the facetious list I wrote up to go with it. Here is the list of potential issues: The iPhone: If you are building an application that must be available on every platform, … [...] [...] jonr added an interesting post on Jon Rose's Blog » Blog Archive » Top 5 Reason's Adobe Flex and AIR …Here’s a small excerptIf, for no other purpose, than to have a good reason to post the facetious list I wrote up to go with it. Here is the list of potential issues: The iPhone: If you are building an application that must be available on every platform, … [...]

]]> By: Darren http://gorillajawn.com/wordpress/2009/06/08/top-5-reason%e2%80%99s-adobe-flex-and-air-are-not-for-you/comment-page-1/#comment-20917 Darren Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:25:19 +0000 http://ectropic.com/wordpress/?p=284#comment-20917 So Jon, to summarize - you can reach 99% of internet-enabled devices in the world by writing a Flash app + an iPhone app. You should only use Flex when writing an RIA (with the emphasis on the A), not a content-centric webiste (totally agree). The low-bandwidth point is contentious - as you allude to, the Flex framework has been automatically cached in the Flash Player across websites/domains since Flash Player 9 release 3. The more popular it becomes, and the more developers that take advantage of the caching, the more attractive it becomes even for low-bandwith use cases. 50-150KB for a whole app (when the Flex SDK is subtracted) compares quite favourably with many (complete) static websites. So Jon, to summarize – you can reach 99% of internet-enabled devices in the world by writing a Flash app + an iPhone app. You should only use Flex when writing an RIA (with the emphasis on the A), not a content-centric webiste (totally agree). The low-bandwidth point is contentious – as you allude to, the Flex framework has been automatically cached in the Flash Player across websites/domains since Flash Player 9 release 3. The more popular it becomes, and the more developers that take advantage of the caching, the more attractive it becomes even for low-bandwith use cases. 50-150KB for a whole app (when the Flex SDK is subtracted) compares quite favourably with many (complete) static websites.

]]> By: Darren http://gorillajawn.com/wordpress/2009/06/08/top-5-reason%e2%80%99s-adobe-flex-and-air-are-not-for-you/comment-page-1/#comment-20916 Darren Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:06:23 +0000 http://ectropic.com/wordpress/?p=284#comment-20916 Yes, George, it's impossible to imagine a desktop application - using an almost identical codebase to your web app and works cross-platform with no code changes - that might need to store data in a local database or read and write local files. Matt, I haven't written an app using HTTPService for a couple of years and I use Flex every day. If you or your team are also developing the backend, it's trivial (and much faster/lower-bandwidth) to pass typed objects back and forth from Java/PHP/C# etc. using AMF. It really cuts down on the logic needed both client and server-side. Yes, George, it’s impossible to imagine a desktop application – using an almost identical codebase to your web app and works cross-platform with no code changes – that might need to store data in a local database or read and write local files.

Matt, I haven’t written an app using HTTPService for a couple of years and I use Flex every day. If you or your team are also developing the backend, it’s trivial (and much faster/lower-bandwidth) to pass typed objects back and forth from Java/PHP/C# etc. using AMF. It really cuts down on the logic needed both client and server-side.

]]> By: Quentin http://gorillajawn.com/wordpress/2009/06/08/top-5-reason%e2%80%99s-adobe-flex-and-air-are-not-for-you/comment-page-1/#comment-20908 Quentin Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:30:46 +0000 http://ectropic.com/wordpress/?p=284#comment-20908 George, AIR apps can be built using HTML, JS & CSS, they aren't all Flex/Flash. That being said, there are plenty of cases where the performance and interactive design are just not feasible in JS, at least not to the same level of interaction. A lot of people tend to focus too much on the "open web" with regards to development, all the while forgetting that they aren't developing for themselves, but for the end user, and as such, sometimes your personal tastes have to be put aside for something better. There are a lot of apps that utilize flash/flex to handle making the presentation of large amounts of visual content more appealing and easier to use for the user. Sliderocket, Buzzword, numerous games and video apps, etc. While the JS/CSS/HTML competitors of these are impressive and functional, they don't offer anywhere near the ease of use from a user standpoint as their flash/flex counterparts. No one technology will ever be able to do everything. At least I hope not, as should you if you enjoy innovation at all. Relying on JS and HTML to do everything is doing a disservice to your customers/users, and is really just a pretty closed minded outlook on the real state of things. Developers need to stop worrying about "me me me" and start worrying about what is the best experience for their users, JS simply can't do everything flash can do. If you're still telling yourself that it can, then you're just delusional or in denial. George, AIR apps can be built using HTML, JS & CSS, they aren’t all Flex/Flash. That being said, there are plenty of cases where the performance and interactive design are just not feasible in JS, at least not to the same level of interaction. A lot of people tend to focus too much on the “open web” with regards to development, all the while forgetting that they aren’t developing for themselves, but for the end user, and as such, sometimes your personal tastes have to be put aside for something better. There are a lot of apps that utilize flash/flex to handle making the presentation of large amounts of visual content more appealing and easier to use for the user. Sliderocket, Buzzword, numerous games and video apps, etc. While the JS/CSS/HTML competitors of these are impressive and functional, they don’t offer anywhere near the ease of use from a user standpoint as their flash/flex counterparts.

No one technology will ever be able to do everything. At least I hope not, as should you if you enjoy innovation at all. Relying on JS and HTML to do everything is doing a disservice to your customers/users, and is really just a pretty closed minded outlook on the real state of things.

Developers need to stop worrying about “me me me” and start worrying about what is the best experience for their users, JS simply can’t do everything flash can do. If you’re still telling yourself that it can, then you’re just delusional or in denial.

]]> By: Matt Platte http://gorillajawn.com/wordpress/2009/06/08/top-5-reason%e2%80%99s-adobe-flex-and-air-are-not-for-you/comment-page-1/#comment-20906 Matt Platte Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:58:04 +0000 http://ectropic.com/wordpress/?p=284#comment-20906 Not sure I agree with the Java/IDE point. Yes, I know it's humor, but yesterday I noticed something: Flex is becoming Java. It's like this, build the 'hello world' HTTPService application - Yahoo Weather seems typical. Have Flex generate the form. Run the application. Oops, something's broken! Now look inside the service folder. Wow. That's quite a pantload of code! I understand why it's there and all but still, maintaining several files per attribute plus Cairngorm adds up rapidly. Soon a developer's attention limit is reached, resulting in Cargo Cultism or the addition of more eyes and hands to the project. Again, it's not a good/bad thing, just part of the landscape, but an environment where Flex development looks (to me) more and more like Java development. Maybe it's always been like that and I just hadn't noticed until the code generator wizard arrived. After all, I'm not primarily a Flex developer. Not sure I agree with the Java/IDE point. Yes, I know it’s humor, but yesterday I noticed something: Flex is becoming Java.

It’s like this, build the ‘hello world’ HTTPService application – Yahoo Weather seems typical. Have Flex generate the form. Run the application. Oops, something’s broken!

Now look inside the service folder. Wow. That’s quite a pantload of code! I understand why it’s there and all but still, maintaining several files per attribute plus Cairngorm adds up rapidly.

Soon a developer’s attention limit is reached, resulting in Cargo Cultism or the addition of more eyes and hands to the project.

Again, it’s not a good/bad thing, just part of the landscape, but an environment where Flex development looks (to me) more and more like Java development.

Maybe it’s always been like that and I just hadn’t noticed until the code generator wizard arrived. After all, I’m not primarily a Flex developer.

]]> By: George Bridgeman http://gorillajawn.com/wordpress/2009/06/08/top-5-reason%e2%80%99s-adobe-flex-and-air-are-not-for-you/comment-page-1/#comment-20904 George Bridgeman Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:33:36 +0000 http://ectropic.com/wordpress/?p=284#comment-20904 My main reason for not using AIR is that I can't see the point of using it. I haven't looked very hard but I've yet to see any AIR app which couldn't be done in regular HTML, CSS & JS, with Flash for anything that can't be done using the first three. George. My main reason for not using AIR is that I can’t see the point of using it.

I haven’t looked very hard but I’ve yet to see any AIR app which couldn’t be done in regular HTML, CSS & JS, with Flash for anything that can’t be done using the first three.

George.

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